March 31, 2015

"Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn't look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!" - From @Trevornoah, September 2009, quoted by Dee Lockett in New York Magazine, March 31, 2015. Here is the article.

Trevor Noah, who's to replace Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," wouldn't be the first to lose a job because of Tweets. As Lockett points out, people who read his anti-Semitic and sexist e-stream of consciousness are demanding just that.

Some remember how Justine Sacco, a public relations representative at IAC, got the ax because of her racist tweet. On a trip to Africa, she joked about not anticipating she would become infected with HIV because she is white. That bounced around the world and she got bounced.

One wonders: What were Noah and Sacco thinking when putting this kind of offensive material out there? That may be the point. With the ease of digital communications you don't have to think. At least not the way we used to when we struggled with what to say in the print medium. For most of us, there was immediate angst. All our systems were on full alert, monitoring the implications of every word.

So, what will happen to Noah? Comedy Central will have to respond. Now the media will watch this one closely.

March 30, 2015

Maybe it's because most of us have had a Chuck-like arrogant professional in our lives that we can feel such deep empathy for Jimmy. It might have been a college professor in our major field, our first boss or a wealthy, influential client. The wound likely never healed.

In tonight's episode Jimmy realizes that after he passed the bar and expected to join his brother's law firm HHM, it was that very bro, Chuck, who kept him out. As a result, Jimmy has had to chase after crumbs of business. Meanwhile, he had been assuming that it was Howard, not Bro Chuck, who was the bad guy.

High-handedly, Chuck informs Jimmy that he is not morally put-together enough to be among the white-shoe lawyers at HHM. He was and always will be "Slippin' Jimmy." Instead of being equal to the august profession of practicing law, Jimmy, Chuck says, is nothing but a chimp with a machine gun.

That, of course, introduces the meme of change: Can human beings change?

Chuck doesn't believe in that at all. Yet, the irony is that he changed from a brilliant lawyer to a nut job who has become psychotic about electric current. When he and Jimmy go to HHM to bring the Sandcastle Piper Assisted Living case, the firm shuts off the electricity. Yes, Chuck's delusion is that severe. And, it has been Jimmy who's taken total care of disabled Chuck.

Jimmy's pain grabs us by the throat. We have moved from simply forgiving him his flaws to loving him because of them.

If you want all the plot details from tonight's episode, including what Mike has been up to, here is a recap from The New York Times.

It's a dog fight out there for selling our professional services B2B. We might be in executive communications, lawyering or management consulting. The shift has been from a sellers' market to a buyers' one.

The good news is that demand has been increasing. However, in most niches in professional services, there is a glut. One solution in marketing and selling has been leveraging the standard tactic in Silicon Valley: A/B testing.

Informally, we establish two or more very different approaches. The variables include:

What to sell

Target markets

Decision-makers

Channels

Tone, content of actual marketing vehicles

Follow-up.

There are all kinds of feedback we receive.

The negative includes emails stating not to contact them again or even explicit criticism of our tactic. Regarding the latter, I asked the public relations agency to go into detail about what was off-base. Briefly it explained that I was pitching credentials, especially track record, not insight on why I cared about its business and how specifically I could help.

The positive ranges from contacting us for more information to checking our LinkedIn profile.

I had learned plenty.

At the top of the list is that, at least in my and my clients' experience, there is no thing any more such as "an elite brand." Don't push branding. Push pulling out all stops to get the outcomes they need.

Another lesson is to parachute in and do immediate course correction. If a tactic is working, leverage that for all pitching and/or closing. If we're not getting results, then stop doing that. Time is not on our side. If we go without work even for a month our insight into the marketplace could decline and our skills atrophy.

A third lesson is having no expectations. Charles Dickens published the popular novel "Great Expectations" about the peril of entitlement. We will get the business or we will not. If we get the business we attempt to do a bang-up job. If we don't we figure out what we might learn from being rejected or ignored and move forward.

About every eight months I establish fresh A/B testing. It's amazing what could change in less than a year. For example, individuals are willing to pay the same kinds of fees which organizations tend to.

March 29, 2015

Management thought leader, Peter Drucker, was a genius. But his ideas probably wouldn't have attracted the huge following of corporate executives had he not been shrewd about how to get attention.

One major technique for Drucker was being a contrarian. When business was focused on cost-efficiency in operations such as running the mailroom, Drucker published an opinion-editorial in The Wall Street Journal. It was titled, "Sell the Mailroom." His iconoclastic pitch was outsourcing. Forget keeping the mailroom and other non-core functions in-house.

Almost half of the most memorable TED Talks also take contrarian stances. And, in the April issue of The Atlantic, Gabrielle Glaser has published a long contrarian article which is anti-Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Already it has generated 12,215 comments. Here you can read it, as well as the comments.

Glaser, shrewd like Drucker, has created a niche explaining why AA is not the solution for the epidemic of excessive consumption of alcohol. She's not the first to hammer that meme. But she is the most influential because that has become her signature.

Of course, being against AA means taking on the courts which sentence miscreants to two or so AA meetings a week for a year. Expensive rehabs which rely on the 12-steps of AA. And loyal members of AA who attribute their sobriety and serenity to the 12-steps.

All of that controversy sells articles and books. It puts the contrarian on the speaking circuit. And it creates the platform for variations on that meme. For example, Glaser could go on to create subcategories on addiction in general, the misapplication of spirituality and the lack of research on addiction.

The trick is to be able to take the heat. Actually, there are so many proven tactics to manage controversy that thought leaders don't have much to fear. In addition, with practice they improve the way they handle the debate. In itself, that positions them as more attractive to constituencies.

Incidentally, my contrarian stance is: Flee the New York Metro area, find success without stress and earn a lot more money. In April 2014, I did just that by relocating my communications boutique to the Southwest. One outcome has been more clients from the New York Metro area than I had when I was based there. They're fascinated that I took the risk of leaving the Big Apple and not only survived but thrived.

We can't just let go of "Mad Men," after it wraps up its final season. So, just as with "Breaking Bad," which we also couldn't let go of, we will likely push for and get a spinoff.

Some think that spinoff should focus on Sally Draper. Here is one opinion on that from Mashable. After all, she had an amazing history of acting out. That ranged from cutting her hair to masturbating in front of someone's uptight mother.

Sally lucked into a kindly, wise therapist but, come on, we all have been in therapy. The fix rarely held. Do we really want to have six years of bearing witness to Sally's becoming unglued?

A better bet for a sustainable spinoff is the infinitely complex Peggy Olson. She has the potential for wholeness. Look at how far she has already come in a world in which she had no role models. Joan is a disaster. Both Draper wives have no sense of a self.

The cliché scars, though, could make Peggy less interesting than Sally. From an ethnic, Roman Catholic, blue-collar background Peggy is probably more screwed up internally than Don Draper. After all, she was also a female in the early 1970s and he had the advantage of being a male.

Does Peggy have the strength to face down those demons? At that time the playing field was still tilted toward Waspy values - and male leadership.

It would be interesting to bring back in a spinoff suicide Lane Pryce. We could experience his rigid childhood, his domineering father, the creative talent which freed him temporarily from that closed system, the blossoming of emotional risk-taking, caving to his father again, what triggered the need to steal and, in the last year of the series, his decision to end it all, in the office.

Like Saul/Jimmy from "Better Call Saul," Lane is a highly flawed character. That's the secret sauce in a sustainable series. Last week many of us cried along with Jimmy when he had to let go of his office in the upscale location. He is Everyman. So can Lane be, at least for the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. Millennials align with their parents' values.

March 28, 2015

"It is our constant difficulty that we want to keep what is pleasant and reject what is unpleasant." Ayya Khema, "Being Nobody, Going Nowhere." Here you can order the book from Amazon.

The welcome side effect of a disruptive era is that memes are up for grabs. They can be smashed, modified, made more sticky or created out of seemingly nothing.

One of those memes which has outlived its relevance is the assumption that life in America is the Happy Valley. Those campaigning for office during 2016, at all levels, can establish the unique force field of reducing demand for daily life without unpleasantness.

Innocence is not cute. Novelist Henry James hammered that theme of the perils involved in being a sunny, optimistic American. With their darker world views, Europeans took advantage of them.

Currently, Americans set themselves up for needless pain by attempting to duck the raw realities of our time. Those range from how much of a struggle it is to earn a living wage to the pilot with unsound mind who might be the one assigned to our flight.

There is demand for realism. "Being Nobody, Going Nowhere" was first published in 1987. Yet, it remains in the 97,000 ranking on Amazon. Within even a few years, most books plummet to the million and below rankings.

Thought leaders can help us with ordinary life. Not inspire us to reach for the supposed American Dream. My immigrant grandparents from Poland and Italy had no dream. Instead, they were shrewd about how tough life was, both in the old and new countries and did what they had to survive. Both sets wound up thriving.

March 26, 2015

In New York Magazine, Dee Lockett confirms that the next season will be the last for "Downton Abbey." The question Lockett poses is if any of the main characters will wind up happy?

Let's look at the probability:

Robert. With his heart malady he seems to be softening from his rigid belief system. He had accepted that daughter Edith had a child out of wedlock. He notices that wife Cora is authentically concerned about him. If he remains open, he is capable of feeling joy. Happiness? That's not an objective for his station in life.

Cora. At the birth of her grandchild Sibby, she seemed to feel a short spell of happiness. Then that was snatched away when her daughter died. Somehow she decided to remain in the marriage and not run off with the art expert. If she becomes involved with Robert again because of his illness and their struggle to accept Edith's situation, they can become close again. But it might take another visit from her American mother to push her all the way to the state of happiness.

Mary. Even in wedded bliss, Mary did not seem happy. She remained locked in herself. That self-absorption seemed to have only hardened after her husband died and she now has the responsibility of a child. She might have given up on the institution of marriage and is only going through the motions searching for a husband. Her one moment of getting out of herself happened when she went to the prison to visit Anna, without even concealing her identity. If Anna is convicted and hangs from the gallows, Mary could be sprung loose from her narcissism. That could position her for a capability for happiness.

Edith. Every time she had the opportunity to break away from being the bullied member of the family she let it slip from her hands. She could have begun a new life with Marigold in America. There's every chance in the world that her secret will be discovered and scandal brought onto the family. Count on escalated bullying from Mary. No, Edith does not seem to have a chance at happiness.

Grandma. In her own compartmentalized world, she is probably the one content member of the family. She has the memory of the grand lover affair with the Russian. She gets to boss everyone around, which she feels entitled to and she has the emotional strength to bare any crisis. Her joy is off-center, but always there.

March 25, 2015

This April will be the beginning of the end of the "Mad Man" series. But it could represent a fresh start for Jon Hamm, who portrays tormented creative alcoholic adman, Don Draper, in the award-winning programming.

Like the character he plays so brilliantly, Hamm is an alcoholic, reports AP. He's finished up treatment at Silver Hill in Connecticut.

This should be no surprise.

As Kay Jamison, a professor at Johns Hopkins, has documented those in creative professions such as Hamm are prone to the kinds of mental diseases which we seek to self-medicate through booze.

Go to just about any 12-step meeting in the upscale parts of Manhattan and among those attending will be famous faces from the creative industries. Now, among them could be Hamm's.

March 23, 2015

Now "The Good Wife" can go full steam ahead with political issues, aligning with the machinations of Campaign 2016.

The key development in the plot line is not that Alicia won the state attorney race. It's that she fears that Peter can't handle her political success and will become a wrench in the works. Deja vu Bill Clinton's supposed undermining of his wife's first run for the U.S. presidency?

In addition to this meme of Mr. Man's possible anti-Alicia antics, this shift from law-firm doings to politics also opens the door for cameo roles by brandname politicos. In themselves, those appearances will bring new viewers and have old ones continue to hand around.

If "The Good Wife" makes it beyond next season, it likely won't have competition for "Downton Abbey." That's due to wrap after that next season.

Thought leaders who understand the legal process could be facing a challenging time addressing the gender issue.

Like business itself, equality of opportunity for females in the workplace keeps mutating. It used to be as simple as equal pay for equal work, which was guaranteed by the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Now, it has been extended to the more subtle and yet complex areas such as not just any seat but the right seat at meetings.

Currently, the gender trial "Pao v. Kleiner" is wrapping up. Last week Tina Huang filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against Twitter and Chia Hong a more complicated one against Facebook.

The three lawsuits, although all alleging discrimination, are different.

For example, some contend that plaintiff in "Pao v. Kleiner," Ellen Pao, might have a weak case. If she loses, the loss could be based on simple points of law. On the other hand, she could be awarded a windfall of punitive damages.

Huang is attempting to launch her litigation as class action. Yet, that class might be difficult to certify.

With so many women seemingly thriving at Facebook (think Lean-In Evangelist), Hong might be facing an uphill legal battle.

But to "talk the law," can open thought leaders to a storm of protest. Despite all the legal and law enforcement television series, the legal process is not well understood by many. It could position one on the wrong side of gender issues to assert that Pao might have been unwise to file a lawsuit. In addition, it might come across as way too pragmatic to muse about the impacts of litigation on these three women's future career paths.

Not that thought leaders should or can duck gender issues. It's that they have to be prepared to articulate their stance with caution and attention to details. Unfortunately that could put their message on mute in this era of extreme communications.